ATLANTA  Mark Kotsay will retire as a player at the end of the season.

“I know this is a good time physically and mentally for me to retire . . . these are my last games as a player,” Kotsay said Saturday before Atlanta's Kris Medlen shut out the Padres on four hits over 7 1/3 innings to lead the Braves to a 2-1 victory before 40,153 at Turner Field.

The Padres lone run came in the ninth when Chase Headley homered off Braves closer Craig Kimbrel. It was Headley's second homer in as many games and fourth in his last nine games.

The 37-year-old Kotsay is completing his 17th major league season. Five of those, including his final two seasons, have been spent with the Padres.

“San Diego is where Jamie and I and our family call home,” said Kotsay. “I signed back here (before the 2012 season) because I wanted to end my career as a Padre.”

The outfielder owns a career batting average of .276 with 1,781 hits, 127 home runs and 720 RBIs.

As a Padre, Kotsay, who struck out as a pinch-hitter Saturday night, has hit .274 with 479 hits, 37 homers and 183 RBIs in 577 games. He is hitting .190 this season as a pinch-hitter and part-time outfielder and first baseman.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have very solid veteran players during my time with the Padres,” said Padres manager Bud Black. “Mark falls into that group. He’s been a great sounding board for me.

“I appreciate his thoughts and his candor. I think he’s been great for the younger guys. I think he’s been great for the more veteran players.”

Kotsay was the ninth overall pick of the 1996 draft out of Cal State Fullerton by the Florida Marlins.

As a collegiate player, Kotsay won the Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s top player in 1995 and followed that award by being named the Most Outstanding Player of the 1995 College World Series as both an outfielder (he is the only player to hit two grand slam homers in a College World Series) and a left-handed closer (he pitched the final 1 2/3 innings to gain the save in the championship game).

He was also a member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team.

Kotsay made his major league debut with the Marlins in 1997 and was traded to the Padres before the 2001 season with infielder Cesar Crespo in exchange for pitchers Matt Clement and Omar Ortiz and outfielder Eric Owens.

Kotsay hit .292 with 27 homers and 119 RBIs in his first two seasons as a Padre, but in 2003 suffered a back injury (herniated disk) running into the wall at Coors Field in Colorado. That injury would change the course of his career.

He had a series of epidural injections over the next three seasons before having two rounds of back surgery – the first after the 2006 season and the second in 2009.

“I’ve wondered what I might have done if I hadn’t injured my back,” admitted Kotsay, who was 28 when he first injured his back and 32 when he had the first round of surgery.

“The back definitely caused an interruption at the peak years of my career. The second surgery took away my ability to play every day. After that, I was done being an every-day center fielder or outfielder.”

Kotsay played for seven teams. He reached the playoffs three times with Oakland, Boston and Milwaukee. The Padres are the only team he played for twice.

“I really wanted to get back to the Padres,” he said. “I think I first contacted them in 2008. San Diego was a means to blend my professional and family life.

“The last two years with the Padres have been very meaningful for me. I couldn’t pick a better group to spend the end of my career with. All the injuries made a big difference to this team, but I like the future.”

Kotsay said he had no immediate plans at the moment “other than making my family the No. 1 priority.”

But he said he would be interested in a baseball future in some capacity.

“The game is what I know and what I love,” said Kotsay. “I haven’t thought about a future direction at this point. There is no specific plan or time about when and how I get back involved.”